Power of the (Netflix) crowd

I’m sure many of you have seen this story by now… Netflix (the DVD by mail company) wanted to improve its relevance ranking algorithm by 10% (no small feat). With some improved math, Netflix customers would get more accurate predictions for the movies they are most likely to enjoy and potentially learn about more niche content (and, of course, with a better algorithm Netflix secures more rentals and happier customers).

Every company that relies on relevancy algorithms is constantly tweaking their recommendation software to improve results (Google, Amazon, etc.). What’s interesting in the Netflix case is that they opened up their data and invited anyone to take a crack at it. The team that could improve the ranking by the required 10% would get $1 million dollars.  Last week the prize was finally awarded (after over 2 years of teams trying to crack the barrier). Do you see the significance? Netflix gets a solution that works (and a little publicity in the process), without having to devote significant company resources (besides the million I guess). Welcome to the world of crowdsourcing – getting the crowd to do your work for you.

You can read more on this story from the NYT BITS blog.

Surveillance in Seattle

The city of Medina (an affluent suburb of Seattle) has recently installed a surveillance system that monitors and records every vehicle that crosses the town limits. Any suspicious activities, vehicles or people are quickly reported to police. In a city where the average household income is more than $200,000 USD it makes sense to want to “stay safe” (and protect your significant amount of property!). But here’s an interesting stat for you: Medina had only 11 burglaries last year – not exactly the crime capital of the world.

The surveillance society means that citizens can rest easy - no more sleepless nights in Seattle Medina.

Read the full article from the Seattle Times, or check out the commentary on BoingBoing.

Monopoly + Google = Tycoon Training

Hasbro has just released an online version of it’s popular Monopoly boardgame – only this time every street is up for sale, including the one you live on. Using the Google maps interface, Hasbro has put a price on nearly every street in the world. You compete against other players to…well… dominate the world by purchasing and building your own empire (kind of like the boardgame right?). The game started on September 9 and will run until the end of January. This game has basically been running for 2 days and already our mid-sized university town (Guelph) has a full-sized soccer stadium, hugh high-rise developments, and some toxic nuclear plant-like development…who’s buying and selling in your home town?

You can get your $3 million (Monopoly) bucks and join the game for free at: http://www.monopolycitystreets.com/ 

Story and link via Mashable.

Stats, stats and more stats

If you’re interested in quick stats about Internet usage, Google (UK) has launched a page just for you. The stats are gathered from third party sources and compiled by Google. While the database of stats isn’t comprehensive (yet), there are definitely some interesting tidbits. For example, did you know that 20 hours of video is uploaded to YouTube every minute? (YouTube stats from May 2009). You can learn more fun facts to impress your friends (or prove your inner geek) here:

http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/landing/internetstats/

Read more from Ars Technica.

Did you see an AIDS counselor?

The Electronic Frontier Foundation just posted an interesting white paper on “locational privacy.” As they’ve defined it, locational privacy “is the ability of an individual to move in public space with the expectation that under normal circumstances their location will not be systematically and secretly recorded for later use.”

In the Information Age, however, locational privacy is not guaranteed. Some of our latest and greatest technology has location tracking built right in (I’ll bet your cell phone does). Of course, these features are often incredibly beneficial; for example, it would be difficult to use Google maps on a smart phone if the phone didn’t know your current location. But when this location information is stored in a database to be referenced at a later date, we’re getting a step closer to the systematic and secret recording of data.

As the report correctly highlights, with access to the right databases someone can ask (and potentially answer) private questions like “Did you see an AIDS counselor?” or “What mosque do you attend?” Being “guilty by association” is one thing, being “guilty by location” is quite another.

I highly recommend reading EFF’s white paper.

OMG! Watch out for the manhole

Yesterday, a teenager fell down a manhole while walking down a Staten Island street. How is this possible you ask? Well, she was intently texting on her phone and wasn’t looking where she was walking. Apparently, the workers were in the process of setting up cones to mark the site, but before they could, our texting teen dropped straight down the hole. In my mind I’m picturing a modern day “Three Stooges” slapstick moment. Anyway…

Fortunately, the teenager is alright. Now, you’d think the parents (who were with the girl at the time) would have used that “teachable moment” to instruct the girl paying a little more attention to her surroundings while she’s on her phone. Nope, instead the parents are going to sue the city – Wait a minute, I guess that’s a “teachable moment” too.

Great news, in a year or two this girl will be behind the wheel of a car.

Read the news brief on MSNBC.

Contextual ads to behavior targeting

The next generation of Internet advertising has arrived, but it may not be a good thing. Google is rolling out a new AdSense feature that delivers ads based on your behavior not on your queries. Typically text-based ads are contextual – they appear beside the content you’re reading or the searches you’re running because they related to that content or those search terms.

This new feature takes that one step further and tracks all of your online behavior. Based on what you view online, Google can build a profile of you and deliver ads that are specific to you (and potentially not related to the content you’re viewing). For example, if you put a big screen TV in your shopping cart at Future Shop, but choose not to buy it, Google could deliver ads for that very TV over the next few days (reminding you of your near-purchase).

Of course behavior targeting isn’t all bad, but you have to wonder about the privacy concerns. Google says you can opt-out of the system, but since the profiles are tracked by cookies, opting-out may be hard to do.

Read the Wired blog post and view the YouTube video here.

Where is your identity?

Here’s another example of how statistics can lie (and if it’s not an outright lie, then at least it’s a huge misrepresentation of the facts). This much is clear: the issue of identity theft is an increasing concern for both citizens and other officials (police, politicians, corporate watchdogs, etc). What isn’t so clear is where (or how) identities are actually stolen.

You don’t have to look far to find literature suggesting that the majority of identity thefts happen as a result of stolen or lost wallets. Many people claim that the risk of losing your identity due to a data breach is fairly small. At first glance this makes sense, but Kevin Poulsen writing on Wired’s Threat Level blog suggests that when you look at the data these statements don’t make sense.

In particular, Poulsen examines a report by Javelin Research. Recent victims of identity theft were asked how their identities were stolen. According to the chart, most people were victims of wallet theft; however, if you read the fine print you’ll actually find that the majority of the people surveyed actually had no idea how their information was stolen. Hmm… something isn’t right here. In other words, information could quite easily have come from a hacked database.

Read the full story (and see the pretty charts) here.

Advertising Surveillance

Here’s a completely new kind of Big Brother: advertisements that watch you. For real. Advertisers are perfecting ways to embed small cameras directly into screens used for advertising (or at the very least around the screens). These cameras make an educated guess as to who is nearby watching the advertisement (male, female, young, old, white, hispanic, etc.) and then adjust the advertisement that is being displayed.

If these cameras can actually gather reliable demographic information, then it is easy to see why marketers are so interested. Of course, critics are “concerned” about the potential invasion of personal privacy. It’s like real-time profiling, and what could be wrong with that? [note satirical undertone].

Check out the full story from the AP via the NYT. (Thanks Robin!)

Super Bowl (or Super Balls)

Comcast is scrambling after approximately 30 seconds of porn hijacked the feed for the Super Bowl in Tucson, Arizona. Apparently, they have no idea how it happened, but they were swamped with angry phone calls from customers almost instantly (duh!). The game may be over, but this one isn’t.

Read the story here.